Spotify

Spotify is a commercial music streaming, podcast and video service that provides digital rights management-restricted content from record labels and media companies including BBC, Sony, EMI, Warner Music Group, and Universal.Music can be browsed or searched by artist, album, genre, playlist, or record label. Paid "Premium" subscriptions remove advertisements, improved audio quality and allow users to download music for offline listening.

Spotify was launched in October 2008 by Swedish startup Spotify AB. As of 15 September 2010, the service had approximately 10 million users, including 2.5 million users with paid subscriptions. The service reached 20 million users (5 million paid) by December 2012, 60 million users (15 million paid) by January 2015, and more than 75 million active users (20 million paid) by June 2015.

Spotify Ltd. operates as the parent company, headquartered in London. Spotify AB handles research and development in Stockholm.

A de facto monopoly

A de facto monopoly is a monopoly that was not created by government. It is most often used in contrast to de jure monopoly, which is one that is protected from competition by government action.In a free market without government intervention this kind of monopoly is theoretically unobtainable for any extended amount of time. A de facto monopoly is only able to be achieved by providing a far demanded product at all times compared to the competition, and even then there would not be a 100% market share.